Pictures that Change 1000 Worlds by Sherry Antonetti

Back in 1992 when I discovered I was pregnant with my first child, ultrasounds for pregnancies were relatively new technology. Because my doctors had deemed me high risk, I got a peek into my son’s hidden world and was amused to see a three inch long boy flipping away from the camera as if he were doing cartwheels constantly. In 2009, I saw the one and only picture of my 11th pregnancy, a daughter two inches long, her heart stopped, her body still.

Abortion advocates do not admit a distinction between these two pictures that any eyes can see. One is a live child growing at an exponential rate, the other is a child deceased. The fundamental reality of being is hard to deny when a person is seen, a heart is beating, when we see face to face. This is why those who want abortion to continue unquestioned, unstopped, do not want ultrasounds offered as part of the full disclosure of facts to the mothers considering abortion. It would make deciding to end the life of their unborn much harder because they would be unable to rest comfortably in the lie that it isn’t a baby, that the baby doesn’t feel anything, that the baby doesn’t have a heart beat but only “heart tones.” It would silently speak to the lie that abortion does not kill.

Opposition to the pictures indicates not simply a willful refusal to face the reality of abortion, but a concerted effort to deceive those seeking abortion from considering fully what they intend and what their actions will mean. If the people are pro-choice, were truly pro-choice, the choice itself would be irrelevant. But the pro-choice advocates aren’t simply neutral benign enlightened individuals, they are motivated by an ideology that argues 1) all children are a burden 2) freedom from any responsibilities to anyone else is true liberation and an end worthy of all means including dismemberment and deception 3) having an abortion has no long term effects unless you let it.

Pro-choice advocates cannot bear the pictures of the dead (aborted) or even the living. Recently they decried a billboard depicting a little live baby with the words Chose Life as inflammatory. The unreal cannot stand in the presence of the real; so even the tacit acknowledgement of children’s faces gives rise to SELF righteous wrath amongst those who want abortion to continue unabated. As the ultrasounds produced by science get better and better, the lie that the unborn are not human, are mere blobs of tissue becomes harder and harder to hold.

My favorite ultrasound shows my youngest son Paul at four months in utero looking straight ahead as if at the camera, smiling. His eyes are wide open and the grin is unmistakable. You cannot see his Down syndrome, you only see him. It’s hard to argue with the 1000 words of a beautiful face. This past week, we lost a battle in promoting a Pro-life culture, but the truth will out. If there will be universal healthcare that allows for abortion, we must insist upon full disclosure for each individual so they can’t not know what they do. Seeing a live picture of one’s child may not save everyone who goes into a clinic, but it will save some, and each one that survives the Rubicon of the womb is one step closer to a society that embraces all souls and protects the innocent. The argument against abortion has always been one that must be made one heart at a time; showing each woman the face of another’s heart, might be the swiftest surest way to change each individual heart and mind.

About Author

Sherry Antonetti is a mother of ten children, published author of The Book of Helen and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns. You can read additional pieces from her blog, http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com.

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1 Comment

Thanks for your continuing stance for life! I have preached about our daughter's new infant ultrasound on her refrigerator door… about all we could see of the baby and then about losing her. Her name was/is Maggie. Anyone looking at a 12 week ultrasound cannot deny human life. And if JPII were still alive — he would likely write another chapter in Fides et Ratio: It doesn't take faith — just reason to know this is a baby – a human waiting to grow big enough to survive outside the womb.